Page 46 of Holly & Hemlock
For a moment, I forget where I am—whether I am the plaything or the player, the axis or the point of collision.
Larkin’s pace is lazy, calculated, every withdrawal a tease, every push an overture to something darker. He traces my hipbone with two fingers, then anchors himself there, digging in hard enough to bruise. "You feel that, Sullivan?" he says, and it’s a dare as much as a question. Lane’s hand presses down on my stomach, where Larkin’s cock is deep inside me.
Lane grunts, the sound subterranean. His hand moves up my flank, finds the slope of my ribs, then drags back down, nails scratching, not quite drawing blood. He’s staring at where Larkin enters me, his own erection pressed against my thigh, hot and insistent.
"Watch him want you," Larkin murmurs into my ear, a command I obey before I realize it. I roll my head to look atLane again, his storm-cloud eyes locked on mine, and in that look is a whole history—envy, longing, the ache of always having to watch from the margins.
Lane brings his hand to his cock again, stroking in slow, deliberate pulls. He does not look away, even when I open my legs farther, even when I bite my lip so hard it hurts. The spectacle is not for me, not for Larkin, but for the hunger that runs between us like a live wire.
Larkin moves faster, the sound of our bodies a wet, ugly slap that fills the room. He pulls my wrists above my head, pinning them with one hand, and uses the other to hook my knee around his waist. The position is crude, exposed, and I relish in it.
Lane shifts, kneeling at the edge of the bed, stroking himself with increasing urgency. His free hand fists in my hair, not cruelly, but with a certainty that leaves no room for refusal.
"Fuck—" Larkin says, voice ragged now, the control slipping. He releases my wrists and cups both hands under my hips, tilting me up so he can drive in harder, deeper. The angle is obscene, the pleasure white-hot and insistent, and I arch against him, not caring who hears the sound I make.
Lane releases my hair, palms my jaw, and turns my face to his. He kisses me, hard and breathless, swallowing every gasp and moan. When he pulls away, there’s a smear of blood at the corner of my mouth—from the inside or the out, I cannot tell.
Larkin is panting now, getting closer. "The nightstand," he says, and Lane moves with a speed that is almost grateful. He grabs a bottle of oil from the drawer—amber glass, label half-peeled from age—and coats his cock, the oil catching the blue of the dawn light and turning it gold. He kneels behind Larkin, steadying him with a hand on the small of his back,and for a moment all three of us are frozen, a grotesque and beautiful tableau.
Larkin pushes into me once, twice, then stills, bracing himself with both hands on either side of my torso. Lane slicks a finger and presses it against Larkin’s entrance, slow and deliberate, watching his reaction in the mirror across from the bed. Larkin groans, the sound involuntary, and drops his head.
"Always knew you wanted more of this," Lane says, the words quiet but undeniable.
Larkin lifts his face, hair wild, eyes wild, and says, "Couldn’t stop then, can’t now."
Lane lines up behind him, pushes into Larkin’s ass with a single, brutal stroke. Larkin’s breath leaves him in a howl, and the force of it drives him deeper into me. The sensation is too much—overfull, overwhelmed—and I cry out, twisting under their combined weight.
Lane holds Larkin’s hips in a bruising grip, sets a punishing rhythm that rocks all of us forward and back. Larkin’s composure is gone; he’s babbling, mouth pressed to my neck, teeth scraping over my pulse. I dig my nails into the sheet, then into his forearm, desperate for purchase.
The bed frame rattles, joints protesting with every collision. The air is thick with sweat, with the raw smell of sex, with the ghost of last night’s wine. I lose all sense of time, of who is touching what, of where one body ends and the next begins.
“You take my cock so good, Hughes,” Lane says, growling with lust. “And she takes yours even better. Fill her cunt. Shoot your load deep into her.”
Larkin and I both moan, his movements grow frantic, his hand sliding between my legs to stroke the place where we’re joined. He’s shaking, the control that defines himdissolving with every thrust Lane delivers. I feel the moment he unravels—his body locking, then convulsing, the flood of heat and motion and sound so intense I see white behind my eyelids.
He comes inside me, shuddering, but Lane does not stop. He pounds into Larkin with an intensity that borders on violence, and I feel every aftershock in the way Larkin trembles, the way his arms collapse, the way he collapses onto me, burying his face in my hair.
I come undone as Lane keeps thrusting Larkin deep into me, my body convulsing just as Larkin’s had a moment ago.
Lane thrusts one final time, a low growl escaping him as he empties into Larkin. He holds there, rigid, then sags, forehead resting against the damp line of Larkin’s spine. For a moment, all three of us are perfectly still, the only sound the ticking of the radiator and the ragged, syncopated breathing of the living.
Eventually, Lane slides out and rolls to the edge of the bed, breathing hard. Larkin follows, pulling free with a grimace, then turns me onto my side, spooning his body around mine as if to shield me from the chill.
The aftermath is a kind of peace I have never known: the ache between my legs, the warmth of their bodies, the faint pulse of my own heart ticking down from some impossible high. I lie there, staring at the frost on the window, at the way the light refracts through the cracks and spills across the sheets.
Lane faces me and his hand finds my face again, thumb brushing the blood from my lip. He does not speak, but his eyes say everything: apology, pride, the knowledge that this is irreversible.
Larkin nuzzles the back of my neck, his breath still erratic. He traces circles on my arm, a gesture almost tender, almost curious.
The house is silent.
The world outside is waking.
Inside, three bodies tangle, spent and shaking, waiting for the next thing that might tear them apart or fuse them together.
I close my eyes and listen to the clock in the hall, counting off the seconds until the day begins.
It is a new kind of hunger, even more powerful than last night.
